It's official . . .

Our alarm system is possessed. We have a nice, nifty alarm system which we have never really used except that it beeps whenever a door or window is opened. This is very handy because I can always tell when one of the boys goes outside. But we have never paid to have it monitored. We were going to, when we first moved in, but the company who had been monitoring it for the people we bought the house from told us that our system was "outdated" and wouldn't work anymore. Since the previous owners had been paying for it, we figured the company was just out to get more money from us, so we said no thanks and thought that was the end of that. Several months ago now, we accidentally pushed the "panic" button, so our alarm went off. We managed to get it turned off, but imagine our surprise when a police officer showed up a few minutes later! We told him it was just an accident, but we were surprised to see him since no one was monitoring our system! He said someone WAS monitoring our system, so the next day we called the company again to say we were not paying for the service and they weren't supposed to be monitoring us. They assured us that it was all taken care of, so again we assumed that was the end. On Sunday night, Bob and I were just sitting around when all of a sudden, out of the clear blue sky, our alarm went off! Bob's first thought was that we were being broken into, although the alarm wouldn't have gone off in that case, since it wasn't armed, but he ran around down in the basement trying to see what was wrong. Finally he came back up and turned the noise off, and we sat back down again, shaken. I got ready to go upstairs, and as I went up, I noticed a fire truck pulling up in front of our house! Oh no! So Bob went out and talked to them, telling them that 1. we have NO idea why our alarm even went off, and 2. WE AREN'T PAYING FOR ANYONE TO MONITOR THE SYSTEM!!! So that was actually our FIRE alarm, as opposed to our burglary alarm, but our smoke detectors never went off, and we checked around but never found anything suspicious. By then we were really shaken, and I didn't sleep well at all that night, especially after we noticed that now a mysterious red light was on on our control panel and on the fire alarm monitor in the upstairs hallway. Monday Bob again called the company and threatened to send any bills we get from the county straight to them, and they again assured us that everything was taken care of. When we got back from Rose's yesterday, the control panel was beeping at us, so it might have gone off again while we were gone, but our door wasn't broken down, so I guess no one responded this time! Then this afternoon, again while I was just sitting on the couch, the alarm went off. I had to call Bob to figure out how to turn it off. Nobody came or called, so that is good, but now the question remains: why is it randomly going off?! It is SO loud and so startling. I am ready to smash the whole thing to pieces, that is for sure. Bob has his own conspiracy theory--the monitoring company is making it go off so we decide that we really DO need them after all! I'm thinking maybe a short or something? Who knows? Who do you even call for things like that? Frustrating!